Petroleum is ubiquitous to the modern age. Petroleum is directly used as a fuel source e.g. oil, natural gas, and gasoline or indirectly used in products such as plastics, tar, and asphalt. In a global economy where commodities and products must be transported thousands of miles from their source to market, fossil fuels are an important natural resource.
Global petroleum usage usually increases each year. Most of the global petroleum consumption is concentrated in developed countries such as the United States, Japan, and Germany. Consumption in developing countries with large manufacturing bases such as China and India is increasing at a rapid rate. China, with its large population and growing middle class has surpassed Japan as the world's second largest consumer of petroleum products.
Although the U.S., China, and Japan are presently the three largest consumers of oil, they do not produce all of the oil they consume. Some of the oil consumed in these nations is imported. Oil production in most developed countries is falling. A large percentage of the world's proven oil reserves are located in the Middle East. Thus, with demand increasing and local supply of oil dwindling, it is likely that consumer nations will continue to import large quantities of oil in the future.
The widespread use of petroleum has many harmful side effects. Air, ground, and water pollution have caused the extinction of numerous species of plants and animals. Many petroleum by-products are also carcinogenic. The burning of petroleum as a fuel source has increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, leading to a green house effect and global warming. Besides the expected harmful aspects, widespread petroleum usage also leads to inevitable accidents. With billions of barrels extracted and transported annually, oils spills occur frequently.
Oil spills in the worlds oceans, are the inevitable result of the extraction and transportation of vast quantities of oil. Oil spills resulting from the grounding of an oil tanker or an explosion aboard an offshore oil rig, may cause hundred of millions of dollars in loss to the local fishing and tourism industries. Oil spills can also result in long term ecological damage to coastal areas where they occur.
Oil spills occurring in or near a body of water are difficult to contain and cleanup. Tides and currents spread spilled oil over a large area making containment difficult. Inclement weather may also make deploying booms or other barriers difficult. Cleanup is further inhibited due to the sensitive habitats in or adjacent to water. For instance, plants and animals inhabiting coral reefs, wetlands, estuaries, marshes and mangroves are extremely sensitive to pollution and may die off quickly before a cleanup response can be initiated. Furthermore, coastal waters contain vast numbers of drifting plankton composed of fish eggs and larvae at the bottom of the food chain. These are often killed by toxic oil compounds and dispersants. Alternatively, plankton may be caught in oil tar balls and become inedible to fish.
Although more can be done to prevent oil spills into a body of water from occurring in the first place, oil spills are going to occur as long as the world depends on petroleum as a main source of fuel. So long as cars run on gasoline and airplanes require jet fuel, there exists a need for an effective way to remove oil quickly and efficiently from our oceans with low impact on the environment.
Known methods of cleaning an oil spill in water generally rely on booms to contain the spill, followed by burning or skimming to remove the spilled oil. However, booms may be ineffective due to inclement weather. Burning the oil causes air pollution. Skimming the oil is labor and equipment intensive.
Another method of cleaning an oil spill involves spraying chemical dispersants on the surface oil. Dispersants may also be released at the source of an underwater oil leak. The drawback of chemical dispersant use is that the dispersants themselves are often toxic to plant and animal life. Furthermore, use of dispersants may actually prevent burning and skimming of the oil because the oil is no longer in sufficient concentration to be skimmed or burned.
Thus what is needed are methods and agents for cleaning oil spills that are more effective and environmentally friendly. The desired agents could be deployed over sensitive eco-systems quickly and relatively inexpensively.